


A Plethora of Snares

by Gehayi



Category: Arthurian Mythology, Arthurian Mythology & Related Fandoms, The Story of the Champions of the Round Table - Howard Pyle
Genre: Arthurian, Birds, Consequences, Developing Friendships, Gen, Musicians, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-06 20:32:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14655642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gehayi/pseuds/Gehayi
Summary: Sir Lancelot of the Lake keeps getting ensnared by a multitude of things: the notion that might does NOT make right, serial kidnappers, the vengeance of others, and his own willingness to trust. All of which could prove lethal...if an observant commoner can't give him a chance to save himself.





	A Plethora of Snares

**Author's Note:**

  * For [karrenia_rune](https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/gifts).



> **Prompt:** Here I would love a story about any of the nominated characters, from a day in the life, a quest or even a character study or action/adventure.

You never hear about me in the stories about Lancelot. This is deeply unfair. I started traveling with him after he became a Knight of the Round Table. Not because he was vain, either. Because I was practical. A great many bards loved to sing songs and tell stories about him—and no wonder, as people would come from miles around to hear about him. 

Tales about Sir Lancelot meant a guaranteed audience, especially if the tales were new. And what better way to get access to unlimited tales about Lancelot than by actually traveling with the man?

He had to be sold on the idea, of course. "I much mislike the notion of traveling with a minstrel," he said, frowning. "I would do good without folk knowing my name, if I could; fain would I wish never to be entangled in the snares of pride and vanity."

At the time I wondered if he was mocking me. Later I discovered the truth; Sir Lancelot of the Lake _always_ spoke like forsoothly. It was as natural to him as breathing water…another thing which he had done since toddlerhood, growing up as he had in an underwater fairy kingdom. 

"Pride doesn't have to be involved," I said solemnly. "Wouldn't you like it if the songs sung about you were true?" 

For having grown up among fairies, Lancelot had a horror of lies, even the sort that people tell to spare each other's feelings. And he had no comprehension of fiction…which meant that yes, usually he had little to no use for me and my kind. Apart from slightly-- _slightly!_ \--exaggerating his achievements, we were largely responsible for spreading the tales about him and Queen Guinevere. Which is true. But that was the fault of the audience, not us. Which would _you_ rather hear about? Two honorable best friends who deeply loved the king and who were both broken-hearted when he died (one becoming a hermit and the other a nun)…or a passionate love triangle that gave rise to torment, guilt, trials, war, and unspeakable tragedy?

That's what I thought.

He snorted at my suggestion. "That would be a novelty—a bard who tells naught but the truth. I should assent to this purely to provide the world with such a rarity. What is thy name?"

I gritted my teeth over that "thy." Friends were spoken to that way, yes—but so were children and servants. I could guess what category he thought I belonged in. But still I answered. "Griffith," I said. "G-R-I-F-F-I-T-H."

That was a lie. My true name was Gryffydd, and I was from North Wales. But it was _pronounced_ "Griffith" (or as near as made no difference) and I had decided to simplify the spelling, at least for those who _could_ read.

"Son of…?"

"I cannot say," I sighed. "I have been an orphan since the hour of my birth, and my only teacher died long ago." I had gone to considerable trouble to ensure that Old Rhys, who was a swine in human form, would _stay_ dead, too, up to and including posthumously decapitating him, cremating, and scattering his corpse's ashes to the four winds at a crossroads. "And I know less than nothing about my parentage. Maybe—no, mayhap—there is some secret about my birth." 

Granted, my parents were almost certainly ordinary…the son of a cooper, perhaps, or the daughter of an apothecary. However, I was talking to a king's son who had been adopted by a fairy queen and trained in arms by a former knight who had been transformed into a half-human and half-fairy hybrid to prevent his untimely death. Lancelot didn't inhabit the same world I did. It seemed only fair to reassure him that I could indeed speak the lines and cues of his reality, if need be.

And it worked. Because when I said that, his face brightened. I could almost hear his thoughts. I was not truly a minstrel, but a lost nobleman in disguise. It was all right if I came with him, for an orphan such as myself must be on a quest to discover my princely heritage. He would help me in every way, for that was what people were supposed to do for the lost and enchanted. Likely we would become brothers-in-arms. I might even join the Round Table.

To be fair, none of that would have been remotely unrealistic if he'd been speaking to anyone from King Arthur's kingdom. But he was talking to Griffith of North Wales, so none of that ever happened.

We did travel together for a good long while, though. And we did become friends after a fashion…mostly due to Sir Phelot and his wife, Lady Aderyn. Funny now that I think of it, but "aderyn" means "bird" in Welsh. And it was a bird that started all the trouble.

***

The Affair of the Foolish Falcon, as I called it in Sir Lancelot's hearing, began on the sort of day that June is known for. The birds were shining, the sun was blooming, the flowers were singing, and all seemed right with the world. Sir Lancelot was riding along the main highway in, yes, North Wales (though about fifty miles from where I'd grown up and therefore as alien to me as the human world was to Lance), looking uncommonly cheerful. He was _smiling_ , which he rarely did, for little was funny to him. I think that this was partly due to his age—he was about twenty to my twenty-eight and took the world very seriously—partly to lack of experience with humanity, nigh onto eighteen years in Fairyland having left its mark, and partly to a distressing amount of empathy. I say "distressing" because an uncommon amount of humor involves laughing at other people's foolishness or misfortunes, and Lance never quite understood why anyone would want to do that.

I tried to be philosophical about it. A noble who was sensitive to the pain of others was a good thing. And considering that he'd received his training in sympathy and compassion from fairies, the fact that he wasn't hunting humans up hill and down dale for his entertainment was a bloody miracle. Things could have been much, much worse. But when I saw his hurt incomprehension at parody songs and funny stories, it was hard, for I could see I wasn't reaching him, and no bard _enjoys_ failing to connect with an audience.

Not that I was singing songs that day. Tense as a harp string that's been tuned too tightly, I was watching for bandits and outlaw knights. We'd had whole chapters worth of encounters with them over the past month and I was very much afraid that this month would be more of the same…making our adventures both potentially fatal and--even worse for an entertainer—very, very repetitive. 

Then we saw the falcon.

It was a merlin. I could tell, for it was small as hawks go--somewhere between a robin and a crow. And a female merlin by the coloring, with brownish-gray wings and a white front streaked and speckled with brown feathers. It was also trailing long strips of leather behind it. Mews jesses, they were called, which bound the bird in place while still allowing it a considerable amount of movement. Polite shackles, in other words. Hunting jesses would have made much more sense on such a sunny day; nobles hunted at every opportunity, and it was far from unknown for an insufficiently trained falcon to fly off instead of killing its designated prey. But hunting jesses were short. These weren't. And considering that most birds in mews were hooded to keep them quiet and that this one wasn't even wearing the scraps of a hood…yes, there was something odd about this.

I looked around and spotted a nearby castle that was doubtless where the bird had come from. I also noted the complete absence of falconers and their apprentices pursuing the creature with net and snare. 

I glanced over at Lancelot. He was watching the bird flutter onto a branch high in an excessively high elm and then entangle its jesses until, mere moments later, it was hanging upside down from the branch, resembling nothing so much as strange feathered fruit.

It didn't beat its wings in a panic as it struggled vainly to free itself. It didn't even squawk. It just glared at us balefully…as if we were withholding a well-deserved treat.

A decidedly peculiar trick to train a valuable hunting bird. Especially since no one seemed to be in a hurry to recover it.

I was just starting to say, "Something is wrong here…" when the drawbridge to the castle creaked down. A minute or two later, the portcullis opened, and a young woman—no older than Lance, and probably a bit younger—daintily rode out on a spotless white mule.

It was the most decorous pursuit I'd ever seen. Mules aren't exactly known for the speed, after all. And at the same time, it was the riskiest. For their own safety—because remember the bandits and outlaw knights I mentioned?--noblewomen didn't generally ride out of their castles alone. Grooms came along. And at least one or two armed escorts. And servants that knew more than a little about training and capturing beasts and birds. No sensible woman would ride straight up to a wandering knight and his servant, brush a stray tress of polished jet under her wimple, and say, as this one did, "Sir knight, hast seen my husband's hawk? I was playing with her and it got loose. I _must_ find it, for he prizes that hawk more than he does me, and he will beat me most severely if he learns she is lost."

She said this while gazing at Lance imploringly…and while showing no fear that two meet-on-the-road men would treat her as villainously as her own husband, if not worse. She also spared not a glance for the trees or the sky—two places where birds are rather wont to be.

"Have you considered divorcing him?" I asked in my most helpful tone. Both men and women were allowed to divorce for cause in Wales, and a husband who beat his wife _was_ one of the legal causes, whether the woman was wed to a prince or a beggar. Part of her dowry (if she had one) was even set aside in advance in case this occurred and she needed something to live on afterward. While many wife-beaters took this very ill, every woman in the kingdoms of Wales knew that they were more fortunate than their sisters almost everywhere else in Christendom, for the law, the judges, the rulers, and the Welsh Church were solidly on their side. 

So the lady's behavior…well, it would have made sense in a foreign country. Or in a ballad. But not here. Not in my homeland.

Not realizing any of this, unfortunately, and thinking that I was making the poorest of all possible jests, Lance told her where the bird was. He even pointed it out as it hung from its elm branch, glaring at us with poisonous loathing.

"Alack!" the lady cried, and I swear that that was the first time I'd ever heard anyone outside of Camelot _say_ "alack." "I am doomed now, for my husband's rage will not be quelled!" Pause. No response from Lance. "And how am I ever to retrieve her?"

"Well," I suggested, thinking that most village girls would have hitched up their skirts and climbed up after the family pet before the wretched bird could panic and accidentally strangle itself, "you do have an entire castle full of servants. Perhaps one of them could assist you? Or even more than one?

She ignored me in that weirdly haughty way that lets you know that you're being ignored and addressed Lance again. "Sir knight. I crave a boon of you."

That got his attention, at least. "What manner of boon?"

She tore at her veil. "What have I been asking for? I need you to climb up to the top of that tree and return my husband's bird to me—and swiftly, lest it not be back in the mews ere he learns it is missing. He…he is merciless when enraged." And then, very softly, she began to weep. No professional mummer could have done it better.

And yes, I could have climbed up and fetched the wretched thing. I knew I was better at climbing than Lance was, having done so since boyhood-- _and_ in a world that was not underwater. But—and this was something I could not say to a Knight of the Round Table—I was afraid of falcons and hawks. I knew less than nothing about them, but I had visions of that evil-tempered creature pecking out my eyes and ripping off half my fingers. By contrast, Lance had learned hunting and hawking from both his teacher and from the Lady of the Lake. The latter apparently made it her practice to visit other, less aqueous realms, and sometimes she had brought young Lancelot with her. 

Better to let the man with experience—and blessed by a fairy queen's magic—handle this. That was the practical choice. Not a knightly one, but then I was no knight and didn't pretend to be.

"Very well," Lance said with great lack of enthusiasm. "But I do warn you, Lady…"

"Aderyn."

He nodded in acknowledgement. "I do warn you that I am no climber. But I shall do my best, an you will help me off with my armor and my padded garments."

That took a while, as Lance wouldn't let _me_ help. Instead, with a gesture and a nod, he banished me and my hand-held harp to the trees growing near the road and bade me wait there while he bound his sword and lance to his horse's saddle and then Aderyn removed every ounce of protection he had. Once my horse and I were shrouded in shade at the roadside and _his_ horse's reins were tied about the trunk of the tree, he, clad only in a tunic, crept up the towering elm.

Lance had been telling the truth; he was no climber. But at last he reached the falcon. Then, instead of unknotting the jesses with his fingers or slicing through them with a small knife (he must have had one in the belt of his tunic, surely) and then binding the bird to his shoulder—or bidding it to fly back to its mistress or, I don't know, grabbing its legs and carrying it back down the tree as if it were a very angry chicken—he broke off the branch to which it was bound and hurled both branch and bird toward the earth.

The falcon shrieked in what sounded like rage and terror. Even though I was half convinced that it was a fiend in bird form, I couldn't help but agree with it. Anyone who trained animals—or who loved them—would have had Lance's head for that.

Lady Aderyn didn't spare the supposedly cherished falcon on which her life depended the smallest glance. Her gaze was avidly fixed on Lancelot and his painfully slow progress back down.

At this point, the portcullis opened once more, and a knight in full armor rode across the drawbridge and toward Lady Aderyn. He didn't pay the slightest attention to the branch-bound merlin (which was still squawking in great indignation); his attention was riveted on Lance, who was still high in the tree.

"May I ask your name?" he inquired courteously. Far too courteously, I thought, for a question aimed at a half-clad stranger. The knight, I was coldly certain, knew precisely who Lance was.

Lance introduced himself with all the dignity and formality he could cloak himself in…which was not much, under the circumstances. Still, I gave him credit for trying.

"Well, Sir Lancelot," said the other knight, "I am Sir Phelot. Know you that name?"

"Nay, sir," said Lancelot in the driest and soberest tone imaginable. "I fear that you have the advantage of me."

"I believe that you met my brother," said Sir Phelot in a voice as hard and smooth as glass, "Perhaps you recollect Sir Peris of the Forest Sauvage?"

I had to suppress a groan (as well as the impulse to hit my head against a neighboring oak or elm), because I recalled Sir Peris all too well. He was what Lance and his peers called "a caitiff knight"—"caitiff" being an old term for a villain, coward or wretch—and was less interested in fighting monsters, sorceresses, and giants than he was in capturing young and pretty noblewomen and never letting them go. About a month before this a temporary companion of ours called Croisette had relayed some unpleasantries about the Forest Sauvage and its evil knight. Her words convinced Lance between one breath and the next to deal with Peris. 

I must say that Croisette was the prettiest bait possible, and that Peris's squire never did more than grab hold of her palfrey. Peris himself attempted to drag her from her horse, but one shriek from Croisette and Lance rode from the shadows where he'd been hiding, crying out in a voice that echoed across seven counties, "Let the lady go, and defend yourself instead!"

The squire hid instantly. Peris wanted to flee—at least, he looked this way and that frantically, as if he was hoping that he could escape Lancelot's wrath—but quickly concluded that fighting was, if not better than fleeing, safer.

He was wrong.

Two blows from Lancelot. That's all it took. The first punctured Peris's shield, striking it with such force that both the shield and the arm carrying it were of no use, and the second hit Peris's helm with the strength of an entire thunderstorm. Peris swooned, falling from his horse into the dusty road in an undignified heap. He recovered his senses quickly enough some moments later, however, for Lance dismounted, ripped Peris's helm off (the wonder is that half of Peris's skull didn't come off with it) and lifted his sword to decapitate the wretch. Croisette and I were cheering Lancelot on, I don't mind saying.

Peris, however, screamed that he yielded, begging Lancelot in the name of his (Lance's) knighthood to spare his life. Lancelot reluctantly agreed—he honestly couldn't see any reason to spare Peris, but he felt that since Peris had asked for mercy in the name of his knighthood, he didn't have any choice—but he told Peris sparing him would mean enduring so much shame that any true knight would rather die. 

And the next day, after the fourteen ladies and demoiselles Peris had been holding captive (for ransom, _he_ said) were freed and the considerable treasure of the castle divided between the former captives and Croisette, Lancelot handed down his judgment. Peris was stripped of his armor and even his garments, and his arms were bound behind him, and a horse's halter was placed about his neck. This halter was tied securely to the horn of Lancelot's saddle, so that Peris had to match the horse's speed if he was to keep breathing. And in this fashion, the four of us traveled until we reached the castle of Croisette's brother, Sir Hilaire of the Dale. Sir Hilaire had Peris bound on horseback in a fashion that ensured he could neither stretch his legs nor dismount and then sent him, in the company of a skilled and muscular groom and a grim-faced guard, to King Arthur for judgment. 

What happened to him after that…well, I imagine it wasn't pleasant. Arthur was a stickler for the law and, as a number of knights had already learned to their horror, having a horse, a weapon, and a "Sir" in front of your name didn't spare you the consequences of law-breaking.

And now Lancelot—unarmored, unweaponed, nearly naked, and stuck in a tree—was facing Peris's brother, who seemed to have been cut from the exact same cloth. Joy.

Now, to my way of thinking, there was nothing to be gained from talking to Sir Phelot. The sensible thing would be for Lance to scramble out of the tree before Sir Phelot or Lady Aderyn took a notion to set it on fire, leap onto his horse, and run like all the devils from Hell were after him. Cowardly? Of course! But a man in full armor with a drawn sword versus an unarmed man in a tunic was no contest at all. And having had the misfortune to meet his brother, I somehow doubted that Phelot was overburdened with respect for Camelotian rules of combat. He meant to kill if he could…and, judging by the glint in his eye, to maim if he could not.

 _Don't anger him,_ I thought at Lance, willing him to hear me. _Just slip out of that tree quickly and cleanly, before he even knows you're gone._

He didn't listen to me, of course. "Sir," he said to Phelot--and in an courteous but icy tone that said plainly that Phelot did not deserve the title--"I treated your brother precisely as he deserved."

"No matter," said Phelot in an implacable tone. "He was my brother, and you shamed him."

 _'Was'?_ I thought uneasily. _Don't tell me that Arthur had him exec—_

"And now," Phelot continued in that flat, relentless voice, "I will have my revenge on you, for you are trapped as I wished you to be"—and here he favored his wife with a glance of appreciative affection—"and I will slay you with as little honor as you accorded my brother. Say your prayers and beg your Creator to forgive your sins, for you will not leave this place alive."

"It would bring you great shame to attack a man bereft of arms or armor."

I sensed at that moment that Phelot, in his plate mail, would have loved to have shrugged but couldn't. " _I_ will feel no shame. And what do I care what others think of me, so long as my enemy is dead?"

"It would be murder. And treason."

"Treason?" A loud rumbling laugh. "My brother was fool enough to dwell in a border town in Arthur's England, true, and so was judged by him, but this is North Wales. _Arthur does not rule here._ And I suspect that mine own king will pardon me, if pardon is needed, for slaying a contemptible slug."

"At least let me face you with a sword in my hand!"

"Why should I give up my advantage?"

I ground my teeth over that. The one knight I'd ever seen who had a modicum of common sense…and he was a villain. It was enough to make a decent bard despair.

Fortunately, I never claimed to be decent. 

Tethering my horse to the nearest tree in such slapdash fashion that the knot would come apart if looked at the wrong way, I glanced at the upper branches of the trees about me and then shinnied up an enormous pine with what looked like a gigantic squirrel's nest near the top. I plucked pine cones along the way—some long, some bulky, and all sticky with sap—placing them first in my belt pouch and then in my rucksack. Then I found a high but sturdy branch near the nest and studied what was happening over at the elm tree.

In the time I'd spent tree-climbing, Lance had broken off a second branch from that long-suffering elm and had then climbed to a lower branch where he was now standing, holding it as if it were a cudgel. Evidently he was hoping that Phelot would come close enough for him to bash Phelot's head or arms…which Phelot didn't have to do, as he had a foot-long sword. On the other hand, Phelot couldn't reach him, either, for Lance was perched on a branch just a pinch higher than the sword could reach.

So…stalemate. Which, if I knew knights, could go on for most of eternity before Lance lost a leg (or two) and then his life.

Time to spoil Phelot's game. 

The first pine cone I flung flew right in front of Phelot's face, making him blink with distraction for a second or two and step back. The second one struck his cheek (served him right for having his visor up!), causing him to yelp. After that…well, he slammed his visor down and our battle, if you want to call it that, began in earnest.

It wasn't as if I could hurt him. I knew I couldn't. Even a volley of pine cones doesn't puncture plate mail. But knights are trained to notice missiles flying toward them because arrows could pierce mail, especially at the joints. And you don't overcome years of training in a moment. Phelot's mind knew that he wasn't in peril; but, as I had hoped, his body reacted as it had for a decade or more…as if he were dodging a volley of potentially fatal arrows.

And as he bobbed and wove and dodged, he moved a little farther away from the elm tree. A very slender window of opportunity for Lance, but a window nevertheless. If he could just leap from the tree and onto his horse…

But Lady Aderyn made certain he couldn't take advantage of this slim chance, for she glanced about to see where the pine cones were coming from and instantly spied me atop the tallest one. Swiftly she stepped away from her extremely placid mule, bent down near the merlin, drew a small knife from her sleeve, and cut its jesses from the branch. Then she turned toward my tree, pointed, and said something to the falcon that I couldn't hear.

It sped toward me.

I ducked down among the branches, frantically hoping that it wouldn't want to get too close to a tree again after the day it had had. And I couldn't throw pine cones at a bird, let alone one trained to hunt. It was considerably faster than a man afoot in plate mail. I didn't want to waste the few weapons I had left. And I really didn't want to enrage it. I could picture all too easily what would happen if it attacked and I started flailing to protect my more vulnerable bits. It would be a long fall to the ground—one I might be unfortunate enough to survive, albeit as a bleeding, unmoving wreck in horrific pain. I wouldn't even be able to sit on a horse and flee beside Lance. And I didn't think that Sir Failure and Lady Scavenger Bird—or their servants--would be all that kind to such an unwelcome guest.

Besides, a fall like that would kill my lute as well. Don't laugh. For many minstrels, instruments become more than possessions. They're both companions and parts of you, for all that they're made of wood and metal and wire. People, you might say. 

I could all but hear the splintering sounds of wood and bone as we both crashed, the blood bubbling from my paralyzed lips, the anguished groan before the lute's neck snapped and she fell silent forever.

Hastily, I rummaged through my belt pouch. It was empty. The rucksack was nearly so, containing little more than three more pine cones, all good-sized and sap-strewn, two coins, and a scrap or two of leaf-wrapped meat left over from breakfast.

Glancing at the bird, I wondered when it had last eaten. Falcons generally preferred fresh meat, I knew that, but if it was hungry enough…

I cut a thin strip of leather from my belt and bound the scraps and the pine cones together into a sticky, prickly package—no joke when you're trying to balance on a thin branch in a tall tree—and then, peering toward the scene below, flung the package outward, praying it would land somewhere close to where I'd aimed. I'd done something like this before…but not since I was ten. I could only hope that Lady Aderyn would find this as irksome as my older sister Hunith had. (I said I was an orphan. I never said I was an only child.)

I could only hope that my years of being the worst younger brother possible (as per the Code of Younger Siblings everywhere—it's like the Round Table's Code of Chivalry, but more binding) would be helpful now.

The pine cones and fresh-ish rabbit landed squarely top Lady Aderyn's wimple. 

A moment later, so did the merlin. And evidently it was starving, for it began shredding the pine cones, the linen wimple, and Lady Aderyn's hair to pull and peck at the meat. Naturally, Lady Aderyn started shrieking for help…and her husband turned and then stared at the sight of a hawk devouring (he thought) his wife alive. He was only torn between saving her and killing Lance for a moment or two, but that was time enough for Lance to make his way to a lower branch and then leap, not onto the back of his white horse—which neither of his foes had bothered to unhitch from the base of the tree—but near it.  
I instantly subtracted all credit I'd given Phelot for common sense. Perhaps he hadn't bothered so that he could torment Lancelot with unattainable freedom. If so, this had proven folly, for Lance's weapons were still bound to the horse's saddle, and I had no doubt that he would free them both in less time than it takes to wink.

He didn't even bother. 

Phelot charged at him, swinging his sword in what would clearly be a death blow if it had hit. Lancelot deflected the blow with his improvised cudgel and then, in the time it takes to count to two, struck under Phelot's sword arm and the side of Phelot's head. I think Lance was hoping to deliver a third, but the second of those blows unseated Phelot from his horse. Dazed and half-fainting, he fell to his knees, all strength gone from both muscles and mind. Lance plucked the sword from Phelot's hand and the helm from his head with no trouble at all, and he prepared to strike Phelot's head from his body.

By now I had scrambled down from the tree and was heading back to Lance's side. So I was just in time to see Lady Aderyn dramatically run to her stricken husband and to hear her cry out in a voice that must have been audible in the Holy Land, "Nay, Sir Lancelot! Spare him, I beg you!"

Racing up to them, I tried to interrupt, pointing out that she and her husband had obviously conspired to entrap and murder him and that she had a knife and a hawk that could tear out his throat on her command. But neither of them took any notice of me. I expected that of her, but not of him. After all, I'd just helped him to escape from certain death. Surely that demanded _some_ respect. 

Instead, it was as if I was watching the end of the battle with Sir Peris all over again. Lance said that he couldn't possibly spare Phelot after his treachery; Lady Aderyn beseeched Lance in the name of his knighthood to spare her poor husband anyway; and eventually Lance agreed. 

"Though I do not see how I can trust you any more than I can your husband," he added, frowning. "For you said not one word in my defense when your husband attempted to slay me."

"Sir Lancelot," I said with exaggerated patience, "why would she defend you? She helped ensnare you in the first place! They planned this together, don't you see?"

"As for your husband, " Lance said, after a stonily disapproving glance at me, "he is as foul a traitor as his brother was. I cannot trust him not to slay me as I don my clothes and armor once more."

"That," I stated, "was the first sensible thing you've said all day."

That earned me an even colder and more reprimanding look. And his next words were to Aderyn: "Give me your mule's halter."

She obeyed. As with Sir Peris, Lance bound his foe's arms behind him. Then he ordered her to help him get dressed again, but I had visions of her driving a small knife between his ribs or smearing poison onto a tiny cut and would not leave her alone with him. (Even nowadays, I would not think that of most folk, be they men, women, both or neither, but of this one? Oh, yes.) It was just as well that I remained, for her hands were all a-tremble and she kept staggering about as if she was close to swooning. If I had not been there, I think that she might have pretended to faint; I had no doubt that there were guards on the battlements of the castle nearby. A falcon landing on her wimple might be chuckle-worthy to some of them; their lady falling, unmoving, to the earth might be misread—perhaps even deliberately—as murder. And I did not think that the two of us could fend off all of a castle's defenders.

But I _was_ there. And I think she knew that I would sooner have fed her to a wild boar than have her trick him twice.

I had to protect my livelihood, after all.

When he was finally clad and armored again, he gazed at both of them with contempt and said, "Now, at least, I need not fear the treachery of any man." He mounted his horse and finally spoke to me. "If you wish to continue traveling with me, get on your horse now."

"What about them?" I demanded, indicating them with a jerk of my chin. "Aren't we taking them to a lord or a judge? Or maybe the King of North Wales? We can't just leave—"

" _Now._ "

I did not need anyone to tell me that he would not repeat himself again. Silently I went to the roadside, awkwardly heaved myself on my horse's back, unhitched it from the pine tree, and then jounced over to the road, where Lance was waiting.

Lance, of course, did not even deign to look back at them, but I did. I kept my gaze fixed on them until they were two dots too small to see any longer. It would have been more honorable to trust them, certainly, but I've never liked turning my back on foes, literally or figuratively. 

Once they _were_ out of sight, though, I got the most blistering lecture of my life. I won't repeat it; suffice to say that Lance was most displeased…not with my attempting to save him (though he was serenely certain that he had not needed that much help), but with my methods. They were sneaky. Worse, they were common. And worst of all, they had involved attacking a noblewoman, which meant that, by definition, they were dishonorable.

"I didn't lay a finger on her," I argued. "Her merlin did that."

"She said it was her husband's hawk."

"And she was lying. I know you grew up in Fairyland and the rules are different there, but up here, merlins are _ladies'_ hawks. They hunt skylarks with them, I think. There are rules about who gets to fly what bird. Gyrfalcons for kings, peregrines for kings' sons, sparrowhawks for priests…look, you write enough ballads featuring nobles and you pick this up. It was her bird. And it was specially trained not to panic when it got tangled in a tree. Maybe she trained it, maybe someone else did, but training it must have taken longer than a month; Peris hasn't been dead that long." Pause. "I wonder how many other murders they used it for."

Lance's expression was one of disbelief and horror. "You think they did this before?"

"Aderyn—"

" _Lady_ Aderyn."

"She spoke her lines as if she had had a lot of practice." I couldn't stop myself from adding, "I wonder how much more practice they'll get now."

"We left them helpless in a meadow—"

"The _lady's_ hands weren't tied," I pointed out. "And she cut the jesses easily enough with her dagger; cutting her husband's bonds shouldn't be any more difficult."

"Even so," Lancelot said firmly, "they will still have to wander until they come to the nearest castle, and the lord will deal with them then."

I gaped at him. I couldn't help it. "Lance. Didn't you see them arrive?"

"No," he admitted with a shamefaced expression. "I was watching the bird when the lady arrived. And when her husband appeared, I was striving to retrieve the bird without falling."

"They came from a castle within walking distance of that meadow," I told him. "Do you understand? _It's their castle!_ "

I received no response to this save a mighty groan. I decided to let him stew over that for a while in silence.

Before we'd gone another mile, however, he said, "You called me 'Lance'.

 _Did I?_ I mentally reviewed what I'd said. _Oh. I did._ "A slip of the tongue," I muttered, blushing. I hated making a fool of myself, and etiquette seemed particularly designed to make me err. "That's what I call you in my mind. I think Lance sounds…friendlier."

Once more, our horses trotted on for about a mile without either of us saying anything. Then he said, "In the name of friendship, then, I would ask a boon of thee."

"Anything!" I said fervently, though a voice in the corner of my mind was saying, _Wait. **What** boon?_

"Never make a song of what happened today. 'Twould shame the King as well as me that I left two foes of his free to wander the world. He would dismiss me, and he would be right to do so."

"All right," I said, looking him straight in the eye. "For friendship's sake. No songs. Not even a refrain of a song. I promise."

And I kept that promise. No songs. Nary a one. 

But I realized even then that Lance had left me a loophole.

After all, I never promised not to tell a story.

***

**Author's Note:**

> The stories of Sir Peris and Sir Phelot appear in Chapter 5 and Chapter 7 of "The Story of Sir Launcelot" in Howard Pyle's _Champions of the Round Table_. Lancelot climbing a tree after a lost falcon, throwing the branch-bound falcon to the earth, having the lady dress him after the fight despite her very clearly being an enemy, and ultimately riding off while Phelot and his wife (who does not have a name in the original) are _within sight of their own castle_ all happen in canon; I did not make them up. Likewise, much of Phelot's, Aderyn's and Lancelot's conversations are simplified (and often shorter) versions of what Pyle wrote.
> 
> In Pyle's canon, the bird is a falcon of unspecified type; I made it a merlin, which is a type of falcon, because [the rules of falconry assigned merlins to noblewomen](https://englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-medieval-mews.html). And merlins really were referred to as ["ladies' hawks" or "lady hawks."](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladyhawke_\(film\))
> 
> Griffith and his actions are non-canonical, and he's mostly there to be exasperated at Lance for not relying on common sense as well as honor.
> 
> "Aderyn" is indeed Welsh for "bird," and it is a modern Welsh girl's name. It's not period, but from what I can tell, "Phelot" isn't a medieval Welsh name, either.
> 
> Griffith's description of abuse and medieval Welsh divorce laws is a fairly accurate summary. It was considerably more technical than that—but law usually is. So is his description of jesses; Pyle states the falcon's jesses are long, and hunting jesses are indeed much shorter than the sort used in mews. 
> 
> I have no idea whether a merlin (or falcons in general) would eat meat that had been dead for a few hours, at least. I'm going on the assumption that if you're hungry enough, you will eat anything. (I honestly can't see Phelot or his wife, in canon or in this story, prioritizing their falcon's well-being over revenge.)


End file.
